Wireless Security and CIA Triad

Now a day, Wireless is becoming a main stream technology. So Wireless security is very important to prevent our WiFi network/host from unwanted users or hackers. There are many encryption protocols use for security. The most common types are-

WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)- WEP provides the security same as a Wired network. The wireless works on Radio, so WEP encrypt the data over the Radio Waves. WEP using the STREAM CIPHER RC4 for Confidentiality and CRC-32 checksum for Integrity.

There are two encryption key strength- 64 and 128 Bit but in 2001 a cryptography vulnerability found in WEP protocol. WEP is using the same encryption key to encrypt the data for all devices.

WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access): WPA is developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance in 2003 to secure the network.  In 2004, they came up with advanced security called WPA2.

WPA uses the TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) to change the key.  TKIP generate a new key for each and every packet, thus it’s preventing from attackers to find the key. CRC was using in WEP for Integrity so WIFI Alliance wanted to add a new Integrity so they used TKIP.

The security is improved by adding WPA 2 that is the second version of WPA.

WPA2 uses a new encryption method called Counter Mode with Counter Mode Cipher Block Chaining -Message Authentication Block Protocol (CCMP) with AES which replaced the TKIP.

 

Both WPA and WPA2 includes 2 authentication modes-

Personal and Enterprise.

WPA/WPA2 Personal: use the 256-Bit pre-shared key for encryption. WPA personal also called WPA-PSK.

WPA/WPA2 Enterprise use the Static key. It has username password using RADIUS server. It has complicated setup but providing advanced security. It uses 802.11x or EAP for authentication.

 

TKIP– Temporal Key Integrity Protocol, use the RC4 algorithm. It generates a new key for each packet in the network.

CCMP– short of Counter Mode Cipher Block Chaining -Message Authentication Block Protocol.  CCMP is more secure than TKIP and WEP protocol.

EAP-Extensible Authentication protocol provides Transport Layer security.

CIA Triad- CIA refers 3 component in Network Security

Integrity– Accuracy, and Consistency of data. It means data should be received same at the remote end as the data sent. For example, if you are trying to access a Website and an attacker redirect your traffic to another Website. That is data integrity.

Confidentiality– Confidentiality means your data should be confidential only authorized user can access those data. For example, your bank account. Only you are the authorized access to your bank account.

Availability: It means information should be available for authorized user. Right people can access data at right times. How we ensure Data Availability: Backup at right time.

 

 

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